


Leaving Heaven

by art3mis33



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Auror Ron Weasley, Character Death, Dark Magic, Eventual Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, F/M, Seer Hermione Granger, draco and hermione are on the run, draco malfoy ex-death eater, if one dies the other will follow, the dark lord's return
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:40:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27258817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/art3mis33/pseuds/art3mis33
Summary: An unwarranted attack results in the awakening of Hermione’s seer capabilities, struck with an undecipherable vision of the wizarding world’s impending doom. When she finally comes to, she discovers that she had unconsciously apparated into Draco Malfoy’s arms, bleeding to death. Draco does the impossible and fuses their magic cores together to keep her alive. Now they’re on the run from pureblood loyalists, the Wizengamot and Hermione’s old flame, Ronald Weasley. To the rest of the world, an ex-Death Eater is on the run with another Muggle-born victim but in Hermione’s eyes, Draco faces a lone battle to protect her from the rest of the world… and from himself.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	Leaving Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> a wip that died with one chapter bahaha

One: Aflame 

Warmth. A gentle touch of it.

Something, someone had lit her aflame at the ends of her nerves, and the sensation scaled her being, from the tips of her fingers up and up until she simply could not bear it any longer. Her eyes flashed open, - she couldn’t remember closing them-, she stepped forward, almost swaying to the rhythm of butterfly wings fluttering about her. The warmth had induced her into a trance-like dance and she spun on her heel, guided by a rush of colour. Beautiful waves of golden and glimmer lifted her arm to the sky and encircled her waist, gentle around her torso, a little faster at her arm. The whisper of butterfly wings caressing her skin made her breath stutter. She watched as gold flecks danced till it reached the tip of her fingernail, lifting her hand to point to the vast sky above.

Black. Looming. The twilight expanse above had disappeared. Her fragile knees buckled, a sudden weight chaining her ankles down and claiming her body prisoner. She fell to the ground and watched with shaking eyes as it begun to swallow her from beneath her feet. A soundless scream pulled from her throat. The muscles around her airway spasmed, tightened as she fell deeper into black – into nothing. No air. No oxygen.

Hermione watched the last speck of gold chase her open hand.

_“Hermione!” an echo of a voice._

Her lungs felt as if it had been punctured by a dagger, countlessly, mercilessly and Hermione thought herself ready to cross the border between living and dead. A sudden icy grip on her wrists made her eyes snap open, and Hermione stared up at glassy, grey eyes. It was wet- her cheek. Tears. Those were tears, a voice in the back of her mind reminded her. Someone was crying for her, mourning for her as he cradled her dying body in his arms. Her vision adjusted and Hermione’s mind raced to take in the unknown man’s trembling thin lips, a faint trace of cedar and oakwood and grey mirrors that stared into her soul.

All she saw was a reflection- of her hopelessness and unspoken regret. She’d been given too little time and hadn’t planned to meet her dead parents this way. Luna. Harry. Hagrid. _Ron_.

_No, no don’t go._

Then she felt it, warmth against her icy cold lips. The same pair of thin lips, wet from the tears gently pressed against her own. A whisper of her name, a useless plea for her to stay. He was begging through his tears. In the corner of her eye, Hermione saw a wand lifted upwards and placed atop her withering heartbeat. Her eyes fell close once more, and a sad smile graced her lips at the thought of being mourned by her loved ones…including the one who held her.

_No. Stay. Stay with me._

A sudden pulse of magic. Hermione’s body jerked upwards and a pained gasp tore itself from her throat. She felt a steady thrumming grow in the centre of her chest, her back craned upwards at a ghastly angle. Her mouth fell open in a soundless scream, feeling the foreign magic carefully stitching her back together and mending the fragile pieces that made up her soul. Then just as swiftly as it entered her dying vessel, it left through the tips of her fingers and the pain ceased. Numbness took over its place. Hermione watched the man’s lips mouth a spell, her name, a spell, then her name again. He was beautiful. His tears were powerful. His magic – a guardian angel. His large hands held her boneless frame firm and warm, determined to chain her to the ground of the earth and stop her from growing a set of her own beautiful butterfly wings.

They would be silver, Hermione thought to herself. The same shade of silver that glimmered from the tears that welled up under his beautiful, beautiful eyes. She felt the ends of her lips curl into a grateful smile, just as her spirit crossed back into the realm of the living.

“Stay.” She heard him whisper at last, as his desperate pleas lulled her to sleep.

_________________________________________________________________

Hermione opened her eyes to winter. A white storm was brewing outside the gigantic window that overlooked the room. Her eyes trailed down the white walls that surrounded her with its matching, majestic white columns that looked as if they were strong enough to hold up a palace. Abundant sunlight poured through the roof; a sky light. Hermione heard a turn of a page. The smell of pungent ink and old parchment registered in her foggy brain. She turned her head slightly to her side, eyes finally settling down on the broad shoulders of a man she undoubtedly knew. He had his back facing her, indulging in the book he was reading and unaware that she had just woken up.

The man who saved her.

She felt her heartbeat come to a steady rest- it had pounded against her chest when she failed to recognize her surroundings but at the sight of her saviour, she had instantly relaxed. Hermione knew who it was; his name repeatedly echoed at the back of her head like a constant reminder. Her heart yearned to rise from her bed and run into his arms, but that action itself seemed…out of place. Too much. _Why? It shouldn’t be_. Her mind raced to recover her memories to truly identify who her saving grace really was.

She knew her eyes were still open- she hadn’t closed them. But within a blink, all she could see was a young boy, sat kneeling in the middle of a black room with a wand digging into the back of his skull. She gasped. The same grey eyes. He was screaming, but she couldn’t hear his voice. He was begging, pleading desperately as tears ran down his pale, hollowed out cheeks. Hermione’s blood ran cold at the sight of him; his screaming and the blackened claws that held his head to the ground all too familiar. She looked down, searching for what the boy was staring at with such sheer fear- her arm. She screamed. The letters in her skin were burning into her flesh.

**_Mudblood._ **

“Hermione!”

Another blink. White light. Hermione dug her nails into the back of the man who embraced her, clutching onto him for dear life. She felt herself choke on thin air and her nails dragged down his back, desperate to grab onto anything at all to ground herself. She was struggling to breathe and barely managing. She could smell him; cedar and oakwood and that seemed to gradually ground her back to the white hospital room.

“Stay. Stay with me Hermione.” He had repeated, silver eyes frantically searching hers.

Hermione found the strength to lift her hand and cradle his cheek. The words left her mouth before she could even begin to register the natural, almost reflex-like response. “I will. I’m not leaving you again.” He smiled down upon her and she finally stared into grey eyes. Her heart wrenched when she recognized the sadness behind them.

She could see him properly now. His blonde silver curls, the lines in his forehead, the long bridge of his roman nose. 

The Draco Malfoy who had once, done nothing to save her many years ago in the middle of Malfoy Manor. And now, the same wizard whom she owed her life to. Hermione remembers the duel on the rooftop, with a masked figure. A woman. The strike at the back of her head when she had tripped on a rooftile. And then…. falling to her certain death.

Her mind raced to collect the shards of her memories. A bedroom- Malfoy’s private quarters. White bedsheets stained crimson. Mirrors across the wall behind Draco’s head. His tears. The sudden, violent pull of her magical core. Then again, Draco’s voice begging her to stay in the realm of the living.

“Draco.” A fragile whisper of his name.

Her voice seemed to fall in the space between them, before shattering into pieces. Hermione was conscious, her memories had come back to her but an unnatural yearning planted itself deep into her chest, begging only for the wizard who held her in his warm, protective embrace. Then she sensed it; the thundering steps of an unwanted presence. She couldn’t help but viciously glare at the giant door. She didn’t hear it or see it but she sensed the united group of Aurors, about to rush into the room, chanting murder like a pack of gladiators. The door still remained closed but through its reinforced steel surface, Hermione could see the shape of a Head Auror with a pointed hat barking out orders Horrified, she realized she was about to be taken away from Draco.

“Don’t let them take me away from you!” She cried out; her voice was cracked at the edges. Her throat dry as a desert. Her voice came out a whisper instead.

She stared into Draco’s eyes, searching for answers when he didn’t speak. _Was he going to abandon her?_ _No. she needed to be safe, stay with him_. The wizard raised his hands up to curl a stray hair behind her ear with a sad hopeless smile. That’s when she saw it- the chains around his ankles and his wrists. The absence of his wand and her own. She didn’t understand what was going on- nothing about where she was, _when_ she was or why rage burned wildly in her veins. She only knew one thing; she couldn’t leave Draco’s side. The mere thought of it caused the rage to course from her veins to collect at her chest and she unconsciously grinded her teeth together.

Draco refused to leave her side, and instead a seemingly quiet rage of his own burned behind grey eyes. He took her hands in his and squeezed gently. “Do you trust me?”

The healers were about to unbolt the door. Hermione looked at him in panic. Draco repeated himself again. “Do you trust me, Hermione?”

“Yes.” Hermione’s voice was nothing short of adoration, despite the rage that wrapped Draco’s tongue like a slither of a snake, when he said her name. “I trust you.”

Draco didn’t pull his eyes away from her and punched the mirror on the opposite side of the wall, shards of the glass splintering and sinking into the skin of his knuckles. Hermione gasped, eyes wide in horror and finally the door to their prison cell was open. In came a group of Healers and Aurors, all of whom had their wands drawn and somehow, Hermione had caught a glance of a familiar red-headed wizard. Her eyes widened in disbelief. Ron. It was Ron, dressed in Auror robes and his wand at the ready.

Ron marched in with a furiousness Hermione hadn’t seen since the Great War when they fought off Nagini together. Now, that rage was directed at Draco. She felt her body move, almost wanting to leap into Ronald’s arms as if it was as natural as day turns to night, but in the end, her arms and legs refused to move an inch. Something was holding her firmly in place and somehow, the sharp glass shard at her throat didn’t seem like a proper answer. No, she simply didn’t want to be near Ron at all. She averted her eyes away, could barely stand the mixture of desperation and rage that morphed his face into someone unrecognizable. He looked too far from the Ron she knew. A stranger.

“I’ll kill her!” Draco roared, voice echoing against the tall walls of the prison cell. Hermione didn’t move, eyes darting down to the glass pointed into her neck.

The merciful warning kept the squad of Aurors back, far enough that they couldn’t reach the ex-Death eater nor the witch. Hermione’s heart threatened to lunge out of her chest but she knew it wasn’t because of the singular pressure on her pale skin. The glass shard was blunt. It wouldn’t puncture her vein at all, but the appearance of it was enough for Ron to turn pale.

Draco snarled. “I’ll kill her and you’ll be left with a dead lover, Weasley.”

_Lover?_

A blink. Darkness. A tiny daisy that fit between Ron’s grimy fingers and tucked into her ear. Hermione saw herself reach for Ron’s hand from where they sat side by side, on a lone hill. Smell of dirt and grass. Fingers intertwined. His gummy smile. Happy chatter about Quidditch. She saw herself lean in towards the red-headed wizard, slowly eliminating the distance between their lips. She saw him then- another wizard in the distance, his face utterly _broken_ at their happiness. His grey eyes watched them in silence.

_No. No! Draco!_

The memory repulsed her. Hermione snapped her eyes open. A helpless whimper fell from her lips, overwhelmed with a sudden urge to crawl back inside a shell of herself. She wanted to erase Ron completely, wanted to deny his entire memory- his existence. Without thinking, she turned her face away from Ron, cowering into Draco’s chest. With a sudden, shocked gasp, she felt the glass shard graze her and narrowly miss a pulsing vein, instead cutting the skin of her chin. Horrified, she opened her mouth to warn Draco. But it was too late, in a split second, Ron roared Hermione’s name. The Aurors attacked.

A shriek pulled itself from her throat, just as Draco yanked them both just in time, away from the blue light that came flying in her face. Suddenly, a wordless disarming spell zipped across them just as Draco grabbed the unfortunate Auror’s wand that flew in his direction, before stunning the whole group. Hermione knew what he was doing before he even got the words out his mouth. The air seemed to still. They stared at each other in a mutual understanding; the spell would last exactly two seconds. And two seconds was all they needed to get out.

She wrapped her arms around Draco’s neck as tight as she could, squeezing her eyes shut just as a bolt of black struck them both. The sensation fried her nerves as if a sudden bolt of electricity had coursed through her. But even through her closed eyelids, she could sense the frantic zip of Draco’s black magic, apparating them from white walls to grey cobblestone. Draco’s pained roar echoed in her ears as he desperately held her against his chest, wand fending off the zaps of blue and white aimed at them. The crackle of black zipped from the tip of her toes to her head, and when finally, the magic left its vessel they both fell backwards to the ground, tumbling down in a heap.

Hermione’s eyes darted across her surroundings frantically. She held her breath, waiting for screams of panic or Ron’s wand to shoot an unforgivable curse at Draco, but none came. After a moment, she finally dared to open her eyes and looked up to see Draco’s signature smirk gracing his lips. They were silent, refusing to let go of the other for even a moment’s worth as they both gulped precious air into their lungs. A hint of a stubble on his chin grazed against her forehead. Hermione didn’t know if that was a poor attempt of a kiss that missed its mark or a kiss that Draco had reluctantly held back from carrying out properly.

No Aurors came to hunt them down. A chilly wind blew past them once more. Hermione shivered in the thin, black dress she wore. A low grunt rumbled from Draco.

“I think I broke my wrist.” Draco murmured low. He groaned quietly, biting the inside of his cheek to stop from flinching. But even through the pain, Hermione realized that he was still staring into her eyes with an abundance of awe and admiration she didn’t know was deserving of herself.

Especially with their current situation, time and place. She lifted herself up gingerly from Draco, finally breaking free from his embrace and looked around. They were caught in between a clutter of furniture and an immeasurable pile of dust. The room was too dark and light barely shone through the thin glass panels that made up a small window, at the back of the room. It took a while for her to find the strength to pull Draco up into a sitting position, before she lifted his hand to her eye-level to inspect it properly. She slowly turned his wrist in different angles, trying to determine if a bottle of Skelego would be able to repair his bones or if indeed the nasty, apparition spell had truly fractured his wrist to non-repairable state. An involuntary sob escaped her chest. Her thin body trembled. She felt Draco lift his opposite hand to cradle her cheek, and whispered.

“Please stop crying.” The wizard murmured under his breath. “They’re gone, Granger. I promise we’re safe.

A silence passed through them. Hermione rubbed at her cheek with the back of her hand. “I was afraid… I thought I was dying. Alone. It was so cold” She croaked out, whimpering from the memory of the cold and darkness that enveloped her.

“You’re not alone. Not anymore.” Draco whispered to her with a nuzzle of his nose to the top of her head. “You’re safe, I will never leave your side.”

It felt natural; speaking to Draco Malfoy with so many layers of hostility torn back, only to bare raw, true emotion and vulnerability that Hermione had almost forgotten the unspoken history between them. They had once pointed their wands at each other, ready to kill and sacrifice in the battle deciding who would lay claim to the wizarding world. The Dark Lord’s return. Dumbledore’s death. The Great War. Death Eater. But all those years of history felt almost…redundant, obscured as if a well of ink had been unnaturally spilled atop pages of her memories and all of her emotions attached to them. _Death Eater?_ No, Draco Malfoy was simply the wizard to save her life. Hermione felt warmth ignite in her chest, when he pulled her close to him, wrapping her in a strong sense of attachment. The attachment felt…natural yet unnatural, red strings forcefully woven together but coaxed to cover her like a blanket.

She stared down at her hands, trying her hardest to remember what happened before the attack. Her hand reached to the back of her skull and massaged at the bulge there, recalling the zap that had struck her unconscious last night. _Last night?_

“I was starting to lose hope.” Draco suddenly confessed as he slowly got up to his feet. She did the same, unconsciously intertwining their fingers together. “I thought you would never wake up.”

Hermione’s frown deepened and her eyebrows furrowed together. She took in Draco’s hollow cheekbones, his pale malnourished face. “How long? How long were we in there…Malfoy?” Her voice cracked, fearing the answer. “How long was I…unconscious?”

“You apparated to Malfoy Manor, into my private quarters. I still don’t know how but…” He coughed, from the dust or from the mention of his bed, she didn’t know. “in October. You were attacked in October”

Hermione heaved a sigh of relief. Early winter. It was still snowing outside “So just a few months?”

“No Granger…a few months and a _whole_ year.” Draco corrected her, “You were bleeding in my bed, something almost split your head apart and I…I was accused of being the one who attacked you.”

Hermione flinched, and as the knowledge sunk into her brain, she realized that that probably was not the only crime Draco had been accused of, when they found her unconscious body in his bed. It would explain Ron’s fury and how she’d almost heard him hex an unforgivable at Draco’s face a split second before they apparated. She wrapped her arms around her body, suddenly not caring to hold Draco’s hand for a moment longer. Her mind raced to collect the bits of pieces of her memories.

“Malfoy you wouldn’t hurt me. You wouldn’t. You… saved my life.” Hermione voice echoed against the high walls. She frowned. She hadn’t meant to form those words, but the echo distracted her from questioning Draco any further however, and she looked around them. “What in Godric’s name…where are we?”

Draco put a hand on the small of her back and urged her to sit down on a stool. He’d brushed the dirt and dust away as best as he could, before kneeling down to her height and giving her a lopsided grin. “Room of Requirement.”

She gasped, eyes going wide. “Hogwarts?”

“We have to lay low for a while... As far as the public is concerned, I am a criminal and you are the unfortunate Muggle-born victim I chose to take with me.”

Hermione panicked. _Victim?_ No! Draco Malfoy saved her life from the masked figure that had attacked her on the rooftop of her house. Her hands flew to her mouth, eyes widening in horror as her mind raced to retrieve back her memories. She could hear Draco calling her name worriedly, then felt his large hand curl around her arm and pull her towards him. A shiver ran down her spine, now fully recalling the monstrosity that had attacked her on the first anniversary of her parents’ death.

Dark shadows. A mask that resembled the skull of a sacrificial goat. A soul-sucking misery that enveloped her frame in mere seconds. _Death Eater._ She’d fallen backwards, off the tip of her rooftop. And somehow in between the fall, had apparated into Draco’s arms, in his bed and bled into his bedsheets. A cold shiver haunted the tips of her fingers… Hermione realized she had narrowly cheated death. Draco Malfoy had barely kept her breathing and alive.

“Thank you for saving my life...” Hermione murmured quietly, squeezing Draco’s hand with a pained smile. “But how…how did you do it? How did you save me Draco? I… I was dying.”

No amount of blood reparation potions or medical science could’ve saved her. It was a critical strike against the back of her skull. It was undeniable; Hermione Granger should be dead by now. She still felt like a ghost of herself. A part of her was missing and apparently her memories were missing too. She hadn’t felt the effect of the time that had passed. A whole year had felt like a blink of an eye to her. Draco turned away from her terrified gaze, refusing to confirm it.

Silence again. A light breeze blew past the window they leaned against, slightly brushing Draco’s fringe away from his eyes. Hermione flinched. She didn’t dare to look at him then, aghast at the answer that loomed over her head like a dark cloud. She knew exactly what kind of magic had struck her- had been studying the history of its kind as part of her extracurricular studies accompanying her Auror training. She had thought herself to be an expert, what with the countless interviews, studies and research papers she’d poured through for over three months. The forbidden dark magic that had enveloped the wizarding world with terror a few years ago. Hermione had braved her way through anyone in her path to search for any defensive spells against it, as news of the Dark Lord’s loyal followers and blood-thirsty warriors were beginning to surface. She was determined, _this time_ she would be prepared.

And in the end, she wasn’t. Her effort was for naught. She should be dead by now.

“I can’t explain that. Not without my wand.” Draco’s answer didn’t help her current riddled state. He gestured to the wand still on the cobblestone, the tip of it flashing a bright red. “Using Weasley’s wand almost broke my hand.”

Hermione watched its blinking; red and white pause, then red and white again. “It’s sending out a signal.” She picked it up, tempted to split it into half. “It’s sending a signal back to the Ministry. It’s a tracking charm! Draco!”

The wizard snatched it up from her grasp and stomped forward. He squeezed through the narrow spaces in between the crowded furniture that towered over them. Hermione was quick to follow his resounding footsteps. They weaved through the piles of dusty tomes, abandoned chairs and tables, countless of shelving holding dusty frames and trophies before they came to a stop in front of a large, oak cupboard. 

She blinked. Hermione sucked in a surprised gasp. She saw the wand disappear in the cupboard, and then her vision flickered, to a similar cupboard in an abandoned store. The snowstorm was relentless. An empty town. The door opened, its bell chime announcing the appearance of two familiar wizards. She didn’t need to see their faces to recognize them. A pair of hands yanked open the cupboard doors, to retrieve Ron’s blinking wand.

 _“They’re at Hogwarts. Room of Requirement.”_ Harry. Hermione’s hands shook with the tremor of an earthquake. His voice was an echo.

Ron snarled. Hermione had no recollection of the man she once loved in that terrifying sound. _“Malfoy dropped dead before we could take him in. I’m going to make him pay with his life for what he did to Hermione. Harry, fucking swear to me.”_

Harry froze. He closed his eyes, a wave of guilt morphing his face into a sullen one. He surrendered. _“You killed him. He had his wand. I wasn’t there to witness it.”_

Hermione stared at the wand gripped in Ron’s fist. It was Draco’s wand.

She blinked again. Hermione’s eyes were open now; Draco was about to place the wand inside the cupboard. She snatched the wand up and before he could protest, she split it into half with her bare hands and a piercing cry. She dropped the halves to the ground, panting as if her breath had been forcefully knocked out of her lungs. The wooden splinters had embedded themselves into her palms but she couldn’t feel the sting at all. The adrenaline rush flooded and all she could hear was her heart pounding against her eardrums. Hermione almost collapsed to her knees, only for Draco to catch her just in time. She shattered into broken sobs in his embrace, feeling the remnants of Ron’s magic dissipate in her hands. She watched a glitter of blue Auror magic shrivel into non-existence. She looked up at Draco, desperately searching for a safe place in his grey eyes.

“I have you. You’re with me. You’re safe.” Draco murmured, lifting both his hands to cup her cheeks. He gently thumbed away the tears streaming down, but his face was sullen. Tired. Exhausted. 

Hermione curled her hands over his wrists. “I’m alive.”

Draco nodded once. “You’re alive.”

That was enough for Hermione to weep helplessly into his chest. She was tired. Confused. Frightened. Draco hid his face in her hair, and Hermione sobbed to the rise and fall of his irregular breathing.

__________________________________________________________________________

Nightfall. Draco had salvaged an old dusty blanket from one of the cupboards before proceeding to wrap it around her body, but she still felt as if the winter had frozen her bones in place. They weren’t going to make it through the night, she thought to herself as she watched another suppressed tremor run through Draco’s back. At this rate, they were going to freeze to death before either one of them died at the hands of an Auror or a Death Eater. Hermione couldn’t decide which was worse.

She stared down at the makeshift bandage that Draco had wrapped around her palm. She flexed her fingers, recalling a clear image of how Draco had gently picked out the wooden splinters in silence. She had watched the concentration form lines in his forehead and how his upper lip curled up, not paying attention to the careful binding of the deep cut that spanned across her palm and around her pinkie finger. She hadn’t felt the pain at all due to the rush of adrenaline, but now it was a searing sting that prickled tears at the corner of her eyes from time to time.

But the more important thing was how she could remember every strand of hair that framed Draco’s eyes; how long it took for him to pick out each wooden shard and how he mumbled a wordless conjuring charm to wash the blood off her palm. A short stream of water was all he could provide. It was the last shred of magic stored within him.

Hermione had used everything in her core for her…visions. Predictions of the future.

“I’m a seer.” Hermione murmured under her breath. She waited for Draco’s response.

The ex-death eater gave her a wordless nod. “I figured. Could feel it…from whatever you were doing.”

A pause. A selfish, naïve part of Hermione yearned to curl up against Draco’s chest, but both witch and wizard were struck in sheer disbelief and barely collecting themselves. This wasn’t how Hermione had hoped life would be like after the Great War. The last recollection she had of her short-lived dreams were her grand plans to become the youngest female Head Auror. On the other side of the galleon, Malfoy had been imprisoned in Azkaban for five years, then his imprisonment sentence lightened to three years of house arrest after two years of notable, good behaviour. She and Draco had led completely different lives, down two separate paths – one illuminated in gold and the other in darkness, leaving the light behind. She might as well had forgotten Draco Malfoy’s existence altogether…. except she hadn’t. Except, the _mudblood_ scar was all she could think about when she so much as glanced in Draco’s direction.

Remembering the history between them had sobered her. When she first awoke from her induced coma, Hermione had only seen him for what he had done for her. Her saviour but she realized now that she hadn’t asked for his help. She hadn’t wanted his help. The reality of bleeding to a certain death and him being the last person who saw her- not her friends, not Ron or Harry holding her hand- it horrified her. She thought about her dead parents, waiting for her. Perhaps the gold glitter she had seen in that dream were their hands, silently beckoning her to join them there in the afterlife. Hermione bit down on her lip, feeling as if she was tearing herself apart needlessly. Her parents’ death was sudden. She’d had a thousand nightmares of the Dark Lord finishing them off during the war, subjecting them to a vile, merciless death before feeding their soulless bodies to Nagini as dinner. A car accident… wasn’t the way she had expected death to take her family away from her.

“Your eyes, they went transparent. Like you weren’t there.” Draco’s voice cut through the tension in the air. He sounded firm. Hermione knew he was about to ask her questions she didn’t know the answers to. It didn’t take a seer’s capabilities to do so.

“No, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why I see the future, and I don’t know why _now_.” Hermione murmured back. She’d meant to spit the words in his direction but all that came was a tired grumble. “All I know is a Death Eater attacked me in my home, chased me up to the rooftop and when I fell down, I apparated to you.”

“Why Granger?” Draco’s voice was void of any emotion. He was weak, his body and soul tired. Hermione knew that the day’s events weren’t what exhausted him. 

It had been over a year. If she was correct in her assumptions about how he saved her, Draco’s very being was the only thing that kept both of them alive for a whole year. That would explain the absence of his wand or perhaps the Aurors had taken it from him and decided that he wouldn’t be a threat locked up in a hospital room with a comatose witch. She didn’t know what would’ve happened if she didn’t wake up. Would Draco be sentenced to imprisonment forever in that hospital room, his fate placed into her hands, waiting for her heart to stop beating one day? It terrified her, to be the sole reason behind his suffering for the rest of his godforsaken life. She didn’t want to be. She wanted to get out of this- blink and hope that this was all just a vision. A nightmare she truly hoped that the Gods would spare her of.

“Why me?” He ran his hands through his hair, pulled at the silver strands then stood to kick at the stool opposite him. The poor wooden victim slammed against the concrete wall; its legs instantly smashed into smithereens. He roared, “Why me Granger?! I was going to get out. I had a year. Just one year and I was going to take everything and disappear. The whole fucking bloodline be damned and leave my mother behind. Why did you come to me Granger?!”

Hermione couldn’t breathe. She didn’t dare to breathe, not with the wizard that loomed over her and pinned her weak body against the wall. She could feel a sob rising in her chest, but she turned her head away from Draco’s piercing glare and gritted her teeth together. She wouldn’t give in. She wouldn’t surrender to him as a victim. If a pack of Death Eaters burst into the room, Hermione knew that the blonde wizard would protect her with his life but it hadn’t meant that she would be protected from him. No. Not at all. There was a slim possibility that Draco was merely keeping her alive, just to torture her to the point that she would ask for death herself.

“I don’t know.” She gasped; eyes blown wide in fear the closer Draco’s face got to her own. She felt like he was watching her for a single flinch, a single movement, any excuse to validate hurting her. “I don’t know Malfoy, but I didn’t ask to be saved.”

A deadly silence. The snowstorm continued its vicious path outside the window.

“You wanted to run.” Hermione’s voice fell to a whisper. “I wanted to die. You want to leave your mother behind but I’d do anything…Anything to see my parents again.”

Draco’s eyes widened in realization. This was news to him; her parents’ death that orphaned her. She had no one to call family. Her parents died with no memory of her. She’d obliviated them before the war and when the war ended, she’d conscripted the help of several healers to reverse her spell. But she was a day too late and death was quicker. Draco staggered backwards, finally putting some distance between them and Hermione sucked in a deep breath of air. Her hands shook as she tried to collect herself, tucking her hair behind both ears and pressing her lips together in a tight line. She’d bared something too personal to the wizard who looked as if he was so close to murdering her with his bare hands. He didn’t need a wand.

Hermione watched him nestle his broken, left hand against his chest, then finally trudged back to his original spot. He didn’t have anything to say to that. Hermione saw the look of resignation on his face before he even sat down. He had given up. His pale faced showed that he wanted a swift end _right now_ , but even that wouldn’t be granted to him. Hermione realized with the line of events so far, he was either to die at the hands of Ronald Weasley or be sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban. It made her blood run cold. But Draco had nothing else to say to her and instead gazed out the window with a sense of longing Hermione hadn’t seen before. The witch realized too late – the lord of the Malfoy Manor hasn’t seen the outside world ever since he turned nineteen. Hermione counted the years in her head; he was twenty-five this year and would be the youngest ex- Death eater to be locked away forever… if they didn’t run away. _Together_.

She had no choice but to run away with him, if she wanted to stay alive.

“Why did _you_ do it?” Hermione whispered into nothing.

Draco grimaced. A snarl. “Do what?”

“You saved me. I…” Hermione recalled the image of him crying in her mind, and how his tears had brushed against her cheeks while she bled to death. A vision that would haunt her for the rest of her life. “I don’t know how and I don’t want to know how. But I want to know why.”

It was a quiet demand. At the very least, she deserved to know this. She wanted to hear the answer from him. He’d had a little over a year to mull over an honest response and Hermione was determined to know if he had any ulterior motives. The attachment she felt to him, the wordless affection, the undeniable sense of security she had first felt waking up in Draco’s arms even though he had threatened to kill her in the hospital. She refused to admit it to herself. There was undoubtedly, another reason why Draco had taken her with him when they fled but she needed to hear it from his mouth. She deserved this much. Hermione could feel the last of her sanity _crack_ at the seams.

“You were bleeding out on my bed Granger, what the fuck do you expect me to do?” Draco sounded as if he was trying to spit out the words as cruelly as he could, but the exhaustion overwhelmed him to the point he could only rest his head on the wall behind him and shut his eyes close. “I saved you because I had to! What, you thought I would run? To where? I have a bounty on my head and that’s all because of you, witch. If I hadn’t done what I did, neither one of us would be alive right now. I’d be framed for the murder of a muggle-born witch in the comfort of my own home and… and I...”

He choked, on the sheer fear that formed a vice around his neck. Hermione didn’t notice.

But _that_ was it, that was his answer. It was the fine line between saving her and saving himself. It shouldn’t have come as a surprised to her; Draco Malfoy remained a coward till this day. Hermione pulled the blankets closer to her chest, drowning a whimper back down and refusing to cry in front of him again. The wizard knew more than enough about her already. He wasn’t privy to her trauma, to her emotions and to whatever was happening in between them that forcefully peeled her lucidity and made her want to curl up against his broad chest instead of blaming him for everything. _Everything_ was his to blame.

He didn’t deserve to make her feel safe in his arms.

“You’re going to freeze to death.” Draco’s statement was sudden. His emotionless tone as firm as stone.

Panic welled up in her chest. Hermione shook her head. _No. Not now._

“You’re going to freeze to death if you don’t let me warm you Granger.” Hermione couldn’t see him. Draco had looked away, staring at the remnants of the broken stool. “If you die, I die.”

She stared at him with wide eyes, and suddenly the winter outside was no match for the horrified words that escaped her mouth. “Did you-?”

Memories came back to her then, spilling down as if a dam had crumbled and its waves crashed against her mind. Hermione frantically scrambled for purchase- anything to ground her mind to reality before her eyes coloured transparent again. She sees Malfoy from a year ago. His bedsheets turned red. Hopeless tears. Begging. Pleading for her to stay. Grey mirrors. She feels the pressure of his wand pointed at her chest before she _felt_ it. A movement. She watched his mouth fall open, unable to make a single sound at the indescribable pain but he kept his eyes steady on her pale face. The pulse continued to drain him from his core, and travelled from his chest, down to the tip of his wand. Hermione’s back curved and a murderous shriek cut through the air as the foreign magic entered her. Her eyes frantically moved from Draco’s eyes to the pulse of magic that entered her barely beating heart. Draco’s core was the colour of ashes, and it pulsed from underneath the skin of his forearm, and straight into her. She felt herself scream once more. The snake on Draco’s forearm began…to move.

Malfoy’s words pulled her from her vision.

“If you die, I die.”

Hermione’s eyes flashed open and she stared at Draco… with a newfound realization. She opened her mouth to scream at him, to sneer, to do anything but the words never came. Confusion. The only thing Hermione could feel was the numbness spreading down from her head to the tips of her fingers and toes, forcing her body and mind to give in and relent. Surrender. Give in. She hadn’t moved. Not even an inch. It was Draco who pulled her into his embrace and wrapped his arms around her cold, shaking body. A whimper escaped her lips- her last plea to let her go. Draco ignored her, extracted the blanket from her freezing body before wrapping it around his shoulders and then over her shaking frame, where she was forcefully fit in to sit between the space of his legs. Her head fell against his shoulder. She felt his thumb rub smooth circles against the tips of her fingers that were beginning to turn blue, trying to warm her the best he could.

“Stay Hermione.” Draco’s exhausted mumble warned her. Hermione watched how his eyelids fell close as his voice faded into emptiness. “Stay or we both won’t wake up tomorrow.”

The snow storm was relentless outside, and it seemed much less vile and merciful than the arms that wrapped around her. Hermione held back her tears, unable to break free from Draco’s weak embrace. The sense of safety kept her there and what at first, felt like a thousand thin strands attached to her core, were now chains shackled around her waist, her wrists, her neck and all of it linked to a single ring around Draco Malfoy’s finger. Hermione whimpered silently, a voice at the back of her mind echoing her emotions into thoughts and suddenly, Hermione realized she’d never be able to break free from Draco’s embrace even if she had tried.

She was too weak, too small, too _vulnerable_. Another painful tear slipping out her swollen eyes.

Draco Malfoy kept to his word. He kept her safe, made her _feel_ safe and Hermione realized with a pained hopeless gasp, that he’ll be the only one able to guarantee her safety …for the rest of her life.


End file.
